Separate plane compression using plurality of compression methods including ZLN and ZLD methods

ABSTRACT

Methods, medium, and machines which compress, enhance, encode, transmit, decode, decompress and display digital video images. Real time compression is achieved by sub-sampling each frame of a video signal, filtering the pixel values, and encoding. Real time transmission is achieved due to high levels of effective compression. Real time decompression is achieved by decoding and decompressing the encoded data to display high quality images. A receiver can alter various setting including, but not limited to, the format for the compression, image size, frame rate, brightness and contrast. In a Doppler improvement aspect of the invention, Doppler velocity scales are incorporated into grayscale compression methods using two bits. Variable formats may be selected and Doppler encoding can be turned on and off based on the image content. A separate plane compression aspect of the invention provides for distinguishing between regions of an image, separating and masking the original image into multiple image planes, and compressing each separated image plane with a compression method that is optimal for its characteristics. From a video stream, separate image streams can be compressed with different methods, and the separate image streams can be stored or transmitted at different rates. Alternatively, frame differencing can be applied to the separated streams. Regions may be distinguished by user input or by automated analysis of the characteristics of various regions of an image, such as the presence of Doppler enhanced pixels.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/467,721, filed on Dec. 20, 1999, entitled “VARIABLE GENERAL PURPOSE COMPRESSION FOR VIDEO IMAGES (ZLN)”, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,233,619, which hereby is incorporated by reference. This application and application Ser. No. 09/467,721 claim priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/113,051, filed on Dec. 21, 1998, and entitled “METHODS OF ZERO LOSS (ZL) COMPRESSION AND ENCODING OF GRAYSCALE IMAGES”, which hereby is incorporated by reference.

A continuation in part of application Ser. No. filed Oct. 27, 2005, entitled “HANDHELD VIDEO TRANSMISSION AND DISPLAY,” application Ser. No. 11/262,106, was published as U.S. publication 2006/0114987, and is hereby incorporated by reference.

A continuation in part of application Ser. No. filed Dec. 13, 2006, entitled “VARIABLE GENERAL PURPOSE COMPRESSION FOR VIDEO IMAGES (ZLN),” application Ser. No. 11/638,989, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,991,052, is hereby incorporated by reference.

My U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/470,566, filed on Dec. 22, 1999, and entitled “GENERAL PURPOSE COMPRESSION FOR VIDEO IMAGES (RHN)”, known as the “RHN” method, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,016,417, hereby is incorporated by reference. The RHN application claims a priority date based on a U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/113,276 filed on Dec. 23, 1998, which also hereby is incorporated by reference.

This application further claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) of the co-pending U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/113,050 filed on 1998 Dec. 21, and entitled “METHODS OF ADDING DOPPLER ENHANCEMENT TO GRAYSCALE COMPRESSION (ZLD).” The provisional application Ser. No. 60/113,050 filed on Dec. 21, 1998 and entitled “METHODS OF ADDING DOPPLER ENHANCEMENT TO GRAYSCALE COMPRESSION (ZLD)” is also hereby incorporated by reference.

My U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/312,922, filed on May 17, 1999, entitled “SYSTEM FOR TRANSMITTING VIDEO IMAGES OVER A COMPUTER NETWORK TO A REMOTE RECEIVER,” now U.S. Pat. No. 7,257,158, describes an embodiment of the invention of the RHN method, as well as a system for practicing the compression method, and also hereby is incorporated by reference.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/436,432, filed on Nov. 8, 1999, and entitled “SYSTEM FOR TRANSMITTING VIDEO IMAGES OVER A COMPUTER NETWORK TO A REMOTE RECEIVER,” now U.S. Pat. No. 7,191,462, is wholly owned by the inventor of the present invention.

ZLN is a three-letter identifier used to refer to the family of compression methods disclosed in the ZLN application. ZLD is a three-letter identifier used to refer to the family of compressions methods disclosed herein. ZL originally stood for ZeroLoss, a trademark of Kendyl Román referring to the clinically lossless nature of the methods. The N in ZLN refers to the variable nature of the method when N can be on of a plurality of values. The D in ZLD refers to the added capabilities for handling Doppler enhanced images in conjunction with a compression method such as one of the ZLN family of methods.

The ZLN and ZLD family of compression methods can be practiced on any number apparatus or medium known in the art, including those disclosed herein or in U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60/085,818, international application serial number PCT/US99/10894, international publication number WO 99/59472, U.S. application Ser. No. 09/312,922 or U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/436,432, U.S. Pat. No. 7,191,462.

This application further claims a priority filing date based on Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/290,523, filed May 10, 2001, entitled “SEPARATE PLANE COMPRESSION”, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference.

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/433,978, filed on Nov. 4, 1999, and entitled “GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE INCLUDING ZOOM CONTROL REPRESENTING IMAGE AND MAGNIFICATION OF DISPLAYED IMAGE”, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,803,931, is wholly owned by the inventor of the present invention.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to data compression, specifically to the compression and decompression of video images.

The ZLD format relates specifically to the compression and decompression of video images that contain a grayscale image overlaid with Doppler enhancement.

The separate plane compression aspect of the invention relates specifically to the compression and decompression of video images that contain portions that can be separated from other portions to optimize compression, storage, or transmission.

2. Description of Prior Art

In the last few years, there have been tremendous advances in the speed of computer processors and in the availability of bandwidth of worldwide computer networks such as the Internet. These advances have led to a point where businesses and households now commonly have both the computing power and network connectivity necessary to have point-to-point digital communications of audio, rich graphical images, and video. However the transmission of video signals with the full resolution and quality of television is still out of reach. In order to achieve an acceptable level of video quality, the video signal must be compressed significantly without losing either spatial or temporal quality.

A number of different approaches have been taken but each has resulted in less than acceptable results. These approaches and their disadvantages are disclosed by Mark Nelson in a book entitled The Data Compression Book, Second Edition, published by M&T Book in 1996. Mark Morrision also discusses the state of the art in a book entitled The Magic of Image Processing, published by Sams Publishing in 1993.

Video Signals

Standard video signals are analog in nature. In the United States, television signals contain 525 scan lines of which 480 lines are visible on most televisions. The video signal represents a continuous stream of still images, also known as frames, which are fully scanned, transmitted and displayed at a rate of 30 frames per second. This frame rate is considered full motion.

A television screen has a 4:3 aspect ratio.

When an analog video signal is digitized, each of the 480 lines is sampled 640 times, and each sample is represented by a number. Each sample point is called a picture element, or pixel. A two dimensional array is created that is 640 pixels wide and 480 pixels high. This 640×480 pixel array is a still graphical image that is considered to be full frame. The human eye can perceive 16.7 thousand colors. A pixel value comprised of 24 bits can represent each perceivable color. A graphical image made up of 24-bit pixels is considered to be full color. A single, second-long, full frame, full color video requires over 220 millions bits of data.

The transmission of 640×480 pixels×24 bits per pixel times 30 frames requires the transmission of 221,184,000 million bits per second. A T1 Internet connection can transfer up to 1.54 million bits per second. A high-speed (56 Kb) modem can transfer data at a maximum rate of 56 thousand bits per second. The transfer of full motion, full frame, full color digital video over a T1 Internet connection, or 56 Kb modem, will require an effective data compression of over 144:1, or 3949:1, respectively.

A video signal typically will contain some signal noise. In the case where the image is generated based on sampled data, such as an ultrasound machine, there is often noise and artificial spikes in the signal. A video signal recorded on magnetic tape may have fluctuations due the irregularities in the recording media. Florescent or improper lighting may cause a solid background to flicker or appear grainy. Such noise exists in the real world but may reduce the quality of the perceived image and lower the compression ratio that could be achieved by conventional methods.

Basic Run-length Encoding

An early technique for data compression is run-length encoding where a repeated series of items are replaced with one sample item and a count for the number of times the sample repeats. Prior art shows run-length encoding of both individual bits and bytes. These simple approaches by themselves have failed to achieve the necessary compression ratios.

Variable Length Encoding

In the late 1940s, Claude Shannon at Bell Labs and R. M. Fano at MIT pioneered the field of data compression. Their work resulted in a technique of using variable length codes where codes with low probabilities have more bits, and codes with higher probabilities have fewer bits. This approach requires multiple passes through the data to determine code probability and then to encode the data. This approach also has failed to achieve the necessary compression ratios.

D. A. Huffman disclosed a more efficient approach of variable length encoding known as Huffman coding in a paper entitled “A Method for Construction of Minimum Redundancy Codes,” published in 1952. This approach also has failed to achieve the necessary compression ratios.

Arithmetic, Finite Context, and Adaptive Coding

In the 1980s, arithmetic, finite coding, and adaptive coding have provided a slight improvement over the earlier methods. These approaches require extensive computer processing and have failed to achieve the necessary compression ratios.

Dictionary-Based Compression

Dictionary-based compression uses a completely different method to compress data. Variable length strings of symbols are encoded as single tokens. The tokens form an index to a dictionary. In 1977, Abraham Lempel and Jacob Ziv published a paper entitled, “A Universal Algorithm for Sequential Data Compression” in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, which disclosed a compression technique commonly known as LZ77. The same authors published a 1978 sequel entitled, “Compression of Individual Sequences via Variable-Rate Coding,” which disclosed a compression technique commonly known as LZ78 (see U.S. Pat. No. 4,464,650). Terry Welch published an article entitled, “A Technique for High-Performance Data Compression,” in the June 1984 issue of IEEE Computer, which disclosed an algorithm commonly known as LZW, which is the basis for the GIF algorithm (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,558,302, 4,814,746, and 4,876,541). In 1989, Stack Electronics implemented a LZ77 based method called QIC-122 (see U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,532,694, 5,506,580, and 5,463,390).

These lossless (method where no data is lost) compression methods can achieve up to 10:1 compression ratios on graphic images typical of a video image. While these dictionary-based algorithms are popular, these approaches require extensive computer processing and have failed to achieve the necessary compression ratios.

JPEG and MPEG

Graphical images have an advantage over conventional computer data files: they can be slightly modified during the compression/decompression cycle without affecting the perceived quality on the part of the viewer. By allowing some loss of data, compression ratios of 25:1 have been achieved without major degradation of the perceived image. The Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) has developed a standard for graphical image compression. The JPEG lossy (method where some data is lost) compression algorithm first divides the color image into three color planes and divides each plane into 8 by 8 blocks, and then the algorithm operates in three successive stages:

-   -   (a) A mathematical transformation known as Discrete Cosine         Transform (DCT) takes a set of points from the spatial domain         and transforms them into an identical representation in the         frequency domain.     -   (b) A lossy quantization is performed using a quantization         matrix to reduce the precision of the coefficients.     -   (c) The zero values are encoded in a zig-zag sequence (see         Nelson, pp. 341-342).

JPEG can be scaled to perform higher compression ratio by allowing more loss in the quantization stage of the compression. However this loss results in certain blocks of the image being compressed such that areas of the image have a blocky appearance and the edges of the 8 by 8 blocks become apparent because they no longer match the colors of their adjacent blocks. Another disadvantage of JPEG is smearing. The true edges in an image get blurred due to the lossy compression method.

The Moving Pictures Expert Group (MPEG) uses a combination of JPEG based techniques combined with forward and reverse temporal differencing. MPEG compares adjacent frames and, for those blocks that are identical to those in a previous or subsequent frame, only a description of the previous or subsequent identical block is encoded. MPEG suffers from the same blocking and smearing problems as JPEG.

These approaches require extensive computer processing and have failed to achieve the necessary compression ratios without unacceptable loss of image quality and artificially induced distortion.

QuickTime: CinePak, Sorensen, H.263

Apple Computer, Inc. released a component architecture for digital video compression and decompression, named QuickTime. Any number of methods can be encoded into a QuickTime compressor/decompressor (codec). Some popular codec are CinePak, Sorensen, and H.263. CinePak and Sorensen both require extensive computer processing to prepare a digital video sequence for playback in real time; neither can be used for live compression. H.263 compresses in real time but does so by sacrificing image quality resulting in severe blocking and smearing.

Fractal and Wavelet Compression

Extremely high compression ratios are achievable with fractal and wavelet compression algorithms. These approaches require extensive computer processing and generally cannot be completed in real time.

Sub-sampling

Sub-sampling is the selection of a subset of data from a larger set of data. For example, when every other pixel of every other row of a video image is selected, the resulting image has half the width and half the height. This is image sub-sampling. Other types of sub-sampling include frame sub-sampling, area sub-sampling, and bit-wise sub-sampling.

Image Stretching

If an image is to be enlarged but maintain the same number of pixels per inch, data must be filled in for the new pixels that are added. Various methods of stretching an image and filling in the new pixels to maintain image consistency are known in the art. Some methods known in the art are dithering (using adjacent colors that appear to be blended color), and error diffusion, “nearest neighbor”, bilinear and bicubic.

Doppler Enhancement

Doppler techniques are used to determine the velocities of one or more small objects. Some common uses of Doppler techniques include without limitation:

-   -   1. Radar used to detect rain     -   2. Radar used to determine speed of vehicles or aircraft     -   3. Ultrasound blood flow analysis

Doppler velocity scales are often incorporated with grayscale images.

In the case of ultrasound blood flow analysis, average velocities toward the sensing probe are encoded as a shade of red and velocities away from the sensing probe are encoded as a shade of blue. Although the image appears to be in color, there are really three monochromic values: a grayscale, a red scale, and a blue scale. The base image plane (grayscale ultrasound) is generated more often (typically 15-30 frames per second) than the overlay plane showing the Doppler red and blue scales (typically 3-10 frames per second).

In the case of rain, the base map of the earth is generated only once and the Doppler colors that indicate the intensity of the precipitation are laid over the base map.

Moving Pictures

A video or movie is comprised of a series of still images that, when displayed in sequence, appear to the human eye as a live motion image. Each still image is called a frame. Television in the USA displays frames at the rate of 30 frames per second. Theater motion pictures are displayed at 24 frames per second. Cartoon animation is typically displayed at 8-12 frames per second.

Compression Methods

The ZLN and ZLD methods are effective ways to compress video images. Other compression algorithms are known in the prior art, including RLE, GIF (LZW), MPEG, Cinepak, Motion-JPEG, Sorensen, Fractal, and many others.

Each of these methods treats a frame of video as a basic unit of compression applying the compression method uniformly to the entire image.

Color Plane Separation

It is well known in the art that an image can be uniformly separated into color planes based on the red, green, and blue components values for each pixel, based on hue, saturation, and brightness component values for each pixel, or based on ink colors, such as cyan, yellow, magenta, and black. However these color plane separations are not done to reduce data size or to aid compression. They are used to facilitate the display (such as on a RGB or YUV computer monitor) or the printing of the image (for example, four-color printing).

Frame Differencing

MPEG and some other compression methods compare adjacent frames in a stream of frames. Under certain circumstances these methods send only a subset of a frame (namely a rectangular portion that contains a change when compared to the adjacent frame) which is then overlaid on the unchanged data for the adjacent frame.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In accordance with the present invention a method of compression of a video stream comprises steps of sub-sampling a video frame, and run-length encoding the sub-sampled pixel values, whereby the method can be executed in real time and the compressed representation of pixels saves substantial space on a storage medium and requires substantially less time and bandwidth to be transported over a communications link. The present invention includes a corresponding method for decompressing the encoded data.

Doppler velocity scales are incorporated into grayscale compression methods using two bits.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a method of adding Doppler enhancement to compression code typically formatted for grayscale only, by using two bits of the data field to represent the scale of the remaining bits where said bits indicate one of the set of scales comprising:

1. grayscale,

2. red scale, and

3. blue scale.

The present invention teaches that, often in a video stream, a small region of the image is of greater interest to the viewer, or recipient, of the video stream. The region of interest is required at a high quality and high frame rate. The portion of the image that is not of primary interest is still important for reference and orientation and still needs to be displayed but can be displayed at lower quality and at lower frame rate. Said portion is necessary so that the viewer can know when to change the focus to a new region of interest.

The present invention also teaches that, in some cases, separate regions are of similar or equal interest, but, because of distinct characteristics, the image can be separated into multiple regions that can be separated into planes. Upon separation the planes are compressed with a method optimal to the distinguishing characteristics of each plane, and transferred at a rate optimal to each compressed plane.

In accordance with an aspect of the present invention, a method of distinguishing between regions of an image, separating and masking the original image into multiple image planes, and compressing each separated image plane with a compression method that is optimal for its characteristics. From a video stream, separate image streams can be stored or transmitted at different rates. Alternatively, frame differencing can be applied to the separated streams.

One method of distinguishing the region of interest is use of an input device to allow the viewer or broadcaster to dynamically select the shape, size, or position of the region.

Another method of distinguishing the region of interest is to automatically compare adjacent frames and select a subset region that contains the largest change. For example, analysis of a video of a sprinter would show that the leg and arm positions of the athlete are the biggest change. The torso, and perhaps the head, may remain fairly stable. An automatic analysis of adjacent video frames would detect that the regions containing the legs and arms were of greatest change. Those areas could be automatically selected as the region of greatest interest for applying the methods of the present invention.

In some cases, the area of interest is encoded and compressed such that image quality remains high and is transmitted and displayed more frequently. The unselected area, which is important for reference and orientation, is encoded, compressed, and transmitted at a lower quality, resolution, and frame rate. The viewer or broadcaster can change the area of focus to get more detail ii the area outside the current area of focus becomes interesting. If a frame has to be dropped to maintain transmission frame rate, the plane of less quality will be dropped before frames from the more important plane, thus allowing for more bandwidth for the selected area of interest.

In some cases, a video image will contain a marker that can easily be detected by analysis of the video. For example, in a baseball game, generally, any area of the image surrounded by grass or dirt is more important that the sky or stadium. The grass and dirt can be detected as a marker and the regions substantially enclosed by those markers, namely the ball, bat, and players, can be automatically distinguished as the regions of greater interest. Also, for example, in a weather map video being broadcast to the San Francisco Bay Area audience, the region of the map corresponding to Northern California can easily be detected and that portion of the video can automatically be distinguished as the region of greater interest.

OBJECTS AND ADVANTAGES

Accordingly, beside the objects and advantages of the method described above, some additional objects and advantages of the present invention are:

-   -   (a) to provide a method of compressing and decompressing video         signals so that the video information can be transported across         a digital communications channel in real time.     -   (b) to provide a method of compressing and decompressing video         signals such that compression can be accomplished with software         on commercially available computers without the need for         additional hardware for either compression or decompression.     -   (c) to provide a high quality video image without the blocking         and smearing defects associated with prior art lossy methods.     -   (d) to provide a high quality video image that suitable for use         in medical applications.     -   (e) to enhance images by filtering noise or recording artifacts.     -   (f) to provide a method of compression of video signals such         that the compressed representation of the video signals is         substantially reduced in size for storage on a storage medium.     -   (g) to provide a level of encryption so that images are not         directly viewable from the data as contained in the         transmission.     -   (h) to provide efficient encoding of Doppler enhanced images.     -   (i) to reduce the size of an encoded data buffer that contains         Doppler enhancement.     -   (j) to provide efficient encoding for video images that contain         distinguishable regions.     -   (k) to reduce the size of an encoded data representing a video         stream.     -   (l) to reduce the bandwidth required to transmit an encoded         video stream.     -   (m) to provide user control of the region selection and         compression methods.     -   (n) to automatically detect selection regions by detecting         viewer eye movements.     -   (o) to automatically detect selection regions by comparing areas         of change.     -   (p) to automatically detect selection regions by detecting         markers in the image.

DRAWING FIGURES

In the drawings, closely related figures have the same number but different alphabetic suffixes.

FIG. 1 shows the high level steps of compression and decompression of an image.

FIG. 2A to 2H show alternatives for selecting a pixel value for encoding.

FIG. 2A shows the four channel format of a pixel.

FIG. 2B shows the three color components of a pixel.

FIG. 2G shows selection of a component of a grayscale pixel.

FIG. 2F shows a selection of the red component of a red scale pixel.

FIG. 3A shows the basic format of the ZLN variable encoding format

FIG. 3B shows an example of a code where N is 5 bits wide and U is 3 bits wide.

FIG. 4A shows the flowchart for the compression method.

FIG. 4B shows an image and a corresponding stream of pixels.

FIG. 5A to 5C shows the formats for the run-length encoding of the RHN method.

FIG. 5D shows the ZLD format.

FIG. 5E shows the three formats of the three scales.

FIG. 5F shows an alternate embodiment of the grayscale format.

FIG. 5G shows the ZLD format embedded in the ZLN format.

FIG. 6 shows a series of codes and the resulting encoded stream.

FIG. 7 shows a series of codes and the resulting encoded stream of the RHN method.

FIG. 8A shows examples of variable formats.

FIG. 8B shows a format that preserves 9 bits of color.

FIG. 9 shows the flow chart for the decompression method.

FIG. 10 shows image stretching by interpolation.

FIG. 11A shows an example encode table.

FIG. 11B shows a corresponding grayscale decode table.

FIG. 11C shows a corresponding red scale decode table.

FIGS. 12A and 12B show machines for compressing and decompressing, respectively.

FIG. 12C shows a compressor and decompressor connected to a storage medium.

FIG. 12D shows a compressor and decompressor connected to a communications channel.

FIG. 13A shows elements of a compressor.

FIG. 13B shows an embodiment of an encoding circuit.

FIG. 13C shows a generic pixel sub-sampler.

FIGS. 13D through 13J show embodiments of pixel sub-samplers.

FIGS. 14A through 14C shows embodiments of a machine element for variably altering the number of bits.

FIG. 15 shows elements of a decompressor.

FIG. 16A shows elements for setting width, height, frame rate, brightness, and contrast which are variably altered by a receiver.

FIG. 16B shows elements for setting the number of pixel bits that are variably altered by a receiver.

FIG. 17 shows a lossless compression step for further compression of an encoded data buffer.

FIG. 18 shows images being enlarged by stretching.

FIG. 19A shows an example of image separation.

FIG. 19B shows compression and decompression.

FIG. 20 shows a flow chart of the separation and compression method.

FIG. 21 shows different rates for separated image streams.

FIG. 22A shows a system for user selection of separation regions.

FIG. 22B through 22G show examples of various selection shapes.

Reference Numerals in Drawings  100 compression steps  110 sub-sampling step  130 encoding step  140 encoded data  150 decompression steps  160 decoding step  180 image reconstitution step  200 32 bit pixel value (four channel format)  202 blue channel  204 green channel  206 red channel  208 alpha channel  210 24 bit pixel value  212 blue component  214 green component  216 red component  220 RGB averaging diagram  222 blue value  224 green value  226 red value  228 averaged value  230 blue selection diagram  232 blue instance  234 green instance  236 red instance  240 selected blue value  250 green selection diagram  260 selected green value  270 red selection diagram  280 selected red value  290 grayscale pixel  292 grayscale blue  294 grayscale green  296 grayscale red  298 selected grayscale value  299 filtered pixel value  300 N  301 U  302 W  310 pixel bit 7  312 pixel bit 6  314 pixel bit 5  316 pixel bit 4  318 pixel bit 3  320 pixel bit 2  322 pixel bit 1  324 pixel bit 0  325 8 bit pixel  330 5 bit sample  332 sample bit 4  334 sample bit 3  336 sample bit 2  338 sample bit 1  340 sample bit 0  350 3 low order bits  360 formatted code  362 encoded bit 4  364 encoded bit 3  366 encoded bit 2  368 encoded bit 1  370 encoded bit 0  380 3 bit count value  400 encode flowchart  402 encode entry  403 encode initialization step  404 get pixel step  405 get value step  406 lookup encoded value step  408 compare previous  410 increment counter step  412 check count overflow  414 new code step  416 check end of data  418 set done  420 counter overflow step  422 check done  428 encode exit  430 image  440 image width  450 image height  460 pixel stream  500 code byte  501 S1  502 S0  503 S  505 E  510 flag bit  511 Doppler/grayscale flag zero  512 don't care  514 grayscale value  515 grayscale code  520 repeat code  521 Doppler/grayscale flag one  522 blue/red flag zero  524 red scale value  525 red Doppler scale code  530 count  531 second Doppler/grayscale flag one  532 blue/red flag one  534 blue scale value  535 blue Doppler scale code  541 second Doppler/grayscale flag zero  544 extended value  545 extended grayscale code  550 data code  551 S1 in ZLN format  552 S0 in ZLN format  553 S in ZLN format  554 E in ZLN format  555 C  557 X  560 wasted bits  565 data bit 6  570 data bit 5  575 data bit 4  580 data bit 3  585 data bit 2  590 data bit 1  595 data bit 0  610 decimal values  620 first value  622 second value  624 third value  626 fourth value  628 fifth value  630 sixth value  632 seventh value  640 binary code  650 first byte  651 first data  652 first count  653 second byte  654 second data  655 second count  656 third byte  657 third data  658 third count  740 RHN binary code  803 ZL3 format  804 ZL4 format  805 ZL5 format  808 ZL8 format  809 ZL9 format  812 ZL12 format  820 ZL9C format  900 decode entry  901 decode initialize step  902 get code step  908 decode lookup step  909 check zero count  910 place pixel step  914 reset counter step  916 check length  918 decode exit  920 decode flowchart 1010 first adjacent pixel 1012 second adjacent pixel 1014 first subsequent adjacent pixel 1016 second subsequent adjacent pixel 1052 interpolated pixel 1054 interpolated pixel 1056 interpolated pixel 1058 interpolated pixel 1060 interpolated pixel 1100 encryption table (encode table) 1105 encode codes 1110 decryption table (decode table) 1112 grayscale red bits 1114 grayscale green bits 1116 grayscale blue bits 1120 red scale decode table 1122 red scale red bits 1124 red scale green bits 1126 red scale blue bits 1200 video frames 1205 a first video frame 1205 b second video frame 1205 n nth video frame 1210 compressor 1215 video signal 1220 series of encoded data 1225 a first encoded data 1225 b second encoded data 1225 n nth encoded data 1225 encoded data buffer 1230 a first received encoded data 1230 b second received encoded data 1230 n nth received encoded data 1230 received encoded data 1235 encoded data stream 1238 received encoded data (series) 1240 I/O device 1245 input encoded data stream 1250 decompressor 1260 a first decoded video frame 1260 b second decoded video frame 1260 n nth decoded video frame 1260 decoded video frame 1268 decoded video frames 1270 video sequence 1280 storage medium 1290 communications channel 1310 video digitizer 1320 path 1320 1330 video memory 1331 scan 1332 pixel index 1340 path 1340 1350 encoding circuit 1360 path 1360 1370 encoded data 1380 a 24 to 5 bit sub-sampler 1380 b 24-bit RGB to 5 bit sub-sampler 1380 c 32-bit RGB to 5 bit sub-sampler 1380 d color 9-bit sub-sampler 1380 e YUV sub-sampler 1380 f 36-bit RGB to 24-bit sub-sampler 1380 g 15-bit sub-sampler 1380 pixel sub-sampler 1382 pixel extractor 1383 value path 1384 coder 1385 path 1385 1390 data/count 1392 code index 1395 path 1395 1400 24-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1401 generic 3-bit sub-sampler 1402 generic 4-bit sub-sampler 1403 generic 8-bit sub-sampler 1404 generic 10-bit sub-sampler 1410 number of bits selector 1420 number of bits indicator 1430 36-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1440 24/36 bit variable bit sub-sampler 1450 second selector 1460 selection logic 1470 selection signal 1510 decoding circuit 1520 decoded pixel values 1530 decoder pixel index 1540 image memory 1600 transmitter 1610 receiver 1615 setting control path 1620 frame sub-sampler 1621 path 1621 1630 selected frame 1632 pixel from frame 1640 transmitter pixel sub-sampler 1642 path 1642 1650 run length encoder 1660 settings 1661 brightness 1662 contrast 1663 height 1664 width 1665 frame rate 1670 frame selector 1675 frame select indicator 1680 number of pixel bits setting 1690 alternate transmitter 1700 run-length encoding step 1710 run-length encoded output 1720 further lossless compression step 1730 further lossless compression output 1800 unstretched frame 1810 enlarged image 1820 stretching step 1900 original image 1902 grayscale region 1904 grayscale triangle 1910 red oval 1912 blue circle 1915 first path 1920 first plane 1925 second path 1930 second plane 1940 first compression method 1945 second compression method 1950 first encoded data 1955 second encoded data 1960 composite buffer 1970 first decompression method 1975 second decompression method 1980 first decoded image 1985 second decoded image 1990 copy path 1995 overlay path 1999 combined image 2000 entry point 2002 path 202 2004 get pixel step 2006 path 206 2008 which plane decision 2010 path 210 2012 add to first buffer step 2014 path 214 2016 put mask in second buffer step 2018 path 218 2020 path 220 2022 add to second buffer step 2024 path 224 2026 put mask in first buffer step 2028 path 228 2030 increment buffer pointers step 2032 path 232 2040 done decision 2050 path 250 2060 path 260 2062 compress first buffer step 2064 path 264 2066 compress second buffer step 2068 path 268 2070 exit point 2100 first transfer 2101 second original image 2102 second first plane 2103 second second plane 2105 second first decoded image 2106 reuse of second decoded image 2107 second combined image 2110 second transfer 2111 third original image 2112 third first plane 2113 third second plane 2115 third first decoded image 2116 third second decoded image 2117 third combined image 2120 third transfer 2121 fourth original image 2122 fourth first plane 2123 fourth second plane 2125 fourth first decoded image 2126 reuse of third decoded image 2127 fourth combined image 2130 fourth transfer 2140 fifth transfer 2150 sixth transfer 2180 input video stream 2190 output video stream 2200 user input 2205 user input path 2210 display generator 2215 image source path 2220 image source 2225 display path 2230 display 2235 control data path 2240 control data 2250 bust region 2260 background region 2270 oval region 2280 outer region 2282 inner region 2284 hair region 2285 face region 2286 coat region 2287 shirt region 2288 tie region 2290 rectangular region 2299 combined region

SPECIAL DEFINITIONS

plane—a image containing pixels selected from the original image based on their distinguishing characteristics and containing mask pixels holding the place of unselected pixels.

mask value—a uniform pixel value, typically black (all zeros) or white (all ones), used to indicated that the position in the pixel map is to be processed differently.

mask—a region comprising a collection of mask values.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 1—Compression and Decompression Steps

FIG. 1 illustrates a sequence of compression steps 100 and a sequence of decompression steps 150 of the present invention. The compression steps 100 comprise a sub-sampling step 110 and an encoding step 130. After completion of the compression steps 100, a stream of encoded data 140 is output to either a storage medium or a transmission channel. The decompression steps 150 comprise a decoding step 160 wherein the stream of encoded data 140 is processed and an image reconstitution step 180.

FIGS. 2A to 2H-Selecting Pixel Values for Encoding

FIGS. 2A to 2G illustrate alternatives for selecting a pixel value for encoding. The sub-sampling step 110 (FIG. 1) includes sub-sampling of a pixel value to obtain a variable selected number of bits.

Video digitizing hardware typical has the options of storing the pixel values as a 32 bit pixel value 200 or a 24 bit pixel value 210, shown in FIG. 2A and FIG. 2B, respectively. The 32 bit pixel value 200 is composed of a blue channel 202, a green channel 204, a red channel 206, and an alpha channel 208. Each channel contains 8 bits and can represent 256 saturation levels for the particular color channel. For each channel the saturation intensity value of zero represents the fully off state, and the saturation intensity value of “255” represents the fully on state. A common alternative not shown is a sixteen-bit format where the three color channels contain 5 bits each and the alpha channel is a single bit. The present invention anticipates the use of the color channels of 16 bit pixel value is a manner substantially the same as the 32-bit pixel value 200 except the number of bits per channel is 5 instead of 8.

The 24-bit pixel value 210 is composed of a blue component 212, a green component 214, and a red component 216. There is no component for the alpha channel in the 24 bit pixel value 210. Regardless of the structure, the blue channel 202 is equivalent to the blue component 212, the green channel 204 is equivalent to the green component 214, and the red channel 206 is equivalent to the red component 216.

In the present invention, the 32 bit pixel value 200 alternative is preferred due to the consistent alignment of 32 bit values in most computer memories; however for simplicity of illustration the alpha channel 208 will be omitted in FIGS. 2C to 2G.

If the video signal is digitized in color, the three color components may have different values. For example in FIG. 2C, a RGB averaging diagram 220 illustrates a blue value 222 of 35 decimal, a green value 224 of 15, and a red value 226 of 10. One alternative is to sub sample from 24 bits to 8 bits by averaging the three color values to obtain an averaged value 228 that, in this example, has the value of 20: (10+15+35)/3=20. This will produce a grayscale image. Alternatively, a color image can be preserved by sampling bits from each color component (see FIG. 8B).

FIG. 2D illustrates another alternative for selecting an 8 bit value in a blue selection diagram 230. In this example, a blue instance 232 has the value of 35, a green instance 234 has the value of 15, and a red instance 236 has the value of 10. In this alternative the blue instance 232 is always selected as a selected blue value 240.

FIG. 2E illustrates another alternative for selecting an 8 bit value in a green selection diagram 250. In this alternative the green instance 234 is always selected as a selected green value 260.

FIG. 2F illustrates another alternative for selecting an 8 bit value in a red selection diagram 270. In this alternative the red instance 236 is always selected as a selected red value 280.

If the video signal being digitized is grayscale, the three color components will have the same values. For example in FIG. 2G, a grayscale pixel 290 comprises a grayscale blue 292 with a value of decimal 40, a grayscale green 294 with a value of 40, and a grayscale red 296 with a value of 40. Because the values are all the same, it makes no difference which grayscale color component is selected, a selected grayscale value 298 will have the value of 40 in this example.

The preferred embodiment of this invention uses the low order byte of the pixel value, which is typically the blue component as shown in FIG. 2D.

FIG. 2H illustrates a filtered pixel value 299 of 8 bits that may be selected by one of the alternatives described above. In these examples, the filtered pixel value 299 is equivalent to items referenced by numerals 228, 240, 260, 280, or 298. This reduction of the 32 bit pixel value 200 or the 24 bit pixel value 210 contributes a reduction in data size of 4:1 or 3:1, respectively. This reduction recognizes that for some images, such as medical images or grayscale images, no relevant information is lost.

For additional compression, the filtered pixel value 299 can variably select any number of bits. For example, selection of the most significant four bits instead of all eight bits filters noise that may show up in the low order bits may be very suitable for an image such as one produced by an ultrasound medical device. An example of this is shown by ZL4 804 in FIG. 8A.

FIGS. 3A and 3B—Encoding Formats

Speed of compression and decompression may be enhanced if the algorithms fit into computer memory native storage elements such as 8 bit bytes, 16 bit words, or 32 bit double words, or some other size for which the computer architecture is optimized.

A grayscale image may be stored at a higher bit level than the actual values require. This may occur when an image is generated by an imaging technology such as radar, ultrasound, x-ray, magnetic resonance, or similar electronic technology. For example an ultrasound machine may only produce 16 levels of grayscale, requiring 4 bits of data per pixel, but the image digitizing may be performed at 8 to 12 bits per pixel. In this example, the low order bits (4 to 8) respectively provide no significant image data.

In the present invention, a fast and efficient compression and encoding method is implemented by using unused bits to store a repeat count for repeated values.

The most significant N bits of the pixel value are selected where N 300 is the number of significant bits (determined by data analysis or by user selection). If N 300 is less than W 302, where W is a native machine data type such as 8 bit byte, 16 bit word, or 32 bit double word or some other size for which the computer architecture is optimized, then W-N equals the number of unneeded bits, U 300. A repeat count, C, can contain a value from 1 to CMAX where CMAX is 2 to the power of U. For example, if U equals 4, C can be a number from 1 to 16. In practice the maximum value will be encoded as a zero because the high order bit is truncated. In the example, decimal 16 has a binary value “10000” will be stored as “0000”.

For example, when W is 8, value pairs for N and U could include without limitation (2,6), (3,5), (4,4), (5,3), and (6,2). When W is 16, value pairs for N and U could include without limitation (2,14), (3,13), (4,12), (5,11), (6,10), (7, 9), (8, 8), (9, 7), (10, 6), (11, 5), (12, 4), (13, 3), and (14, 2). When W is 32, value pairs for N and U could include without limitation all combinations of values pairs for N and U where N+U equals 32 and N>1 and U>1. When W is not a multiple of 8, value pairs for N and U could include without limitation all combinations of values pairs for N and U where N+U equals W and N>1 and U>1.

FIG. 3A shows the encoded format where N 300 represent the N most significant bits of the pixel value 299, U 301 represents the bits that are not used for the data and are used for the repeat count, and W 302 where W is the width of the encoded data and equal to sum of N and U. As stated above W is preferably a native machine element.

FIG. 3B illustrates bit sub-sampling where N's 300 bit width is 5, U's 301 bit width is 3, and W 302 is 8. The high order 5 bits 310-318 of an 8 bit pixel 325 are extracted to form a five bit sample 330. The lower 3 bits of 330 are ignored bits 350. In the formatted code 360, the ignored bits 350 are replaced with the repeat count value 380.

Encoding

The most significant N bits of each pixel are selected from the image to obtain value V.

In the encryption embodiment of this invention V may be used to select an encoded value, E, from the encoding table. E is also a N-bit value. The number of elements in the encode table 1100 (FIG. 11, shown as an encryption table), is 2 to the Nth power.

In the other embodiments of this invention V is used as E.

E is saved as the prior value, P. For each subsequent pixel, the encoded value, E, is obtained and compared to the prior value, P. If the prior value, P, is the same as E, then a repeat counter, C, is incremented; otherwise the accumulated repeat count, C, for the prior value, P, is merged with P and placed in an array A that implements the encoded data 140 (FIG. 1) buffer. For example, if W is 8 and N is 4 and C is 10, U is 4, CMAX is 16, and ((P <<U)|C) is the merged value. If the repeat count, C, is greater CMAX, then CMAX is merged with P ((P<<U)|CMAX) and placed in the encoded data 140 (FIG. 1) buffer, A. CMAX is subtracted from C and merged values are placed in A until C is less than CMAX. All pixels are processed in this manner until the final value is compressed and encoded. The length, L, of the encoded data 140 (FIG. 1) is also placed in the encoded data 140 buffer.

FIG. 4A—Encode Flowchart

FIG. 4A illustrates the encode flowchart 400 which represents the details of the encryption embodiment of the encoding step 130 (FIG. 1) for the present invention.

The encoding begins at an encode entry 402. In an encode initialization step 403, a prior value P is set to a known value, preferably decimal “255” or hexadecimal 0xFF, a repeat counter C is set to zero, an encoded length L is set to 0, and a completion flag “Done” is set to a logical value of false. Next, a get pixel step 404 obtains a pixel from the image being encoded. At a get value step 405, a value V is set to the N bit filtered pixel value 299 as derived from the pixel using one of the methods shown in FIG. 2C to 2G, preferably the fastest as explained above, and extracting the N most significant bits. At a lookup encoded value step 406, an encoded value E is set to the value of one of the codes 1105 (FIG. 11A) of the encode table 1100 as indexed by V. (In the non-encrypted embodiment of this invention, step 406 is bypassed because V is used as E) Next, a “compare previous” 408 decision is made by comparing the values of E and P. If the values are the same, an increment counter step 410 is executed and flow continues to the get pixel step 404 that obtains the next pixel from the image.

If the encode value E does not match the prior value P, then a check count overflow 412 decision is made. If the counter C is less than or equal to CMAX, then a new code step 414 is executed, otherwise a counter overflow step 420 is executed.

At step 414, the counter C is masked and bit-wise OR-ed with P shifted left by U bit positions and is placed in the A at the next available location as indexed by the encoded length L. Then, continuing inside flowchart step 414, L is incremented, the repeat count C is set to 1 and the prior value P is set to E. After step 414, a “check end of data” decision is made by checking to see if there are any more pixels in the image, and, if not, if the last value has been processed. Because this method utilizes a read ahead technique step 414 must be executed one more time after the end of data is reached to process the last run-length. If there is more data in the image, flow continues to a check of the completion flag “Done” at step 422. If the check indicates that the process is not completed, flow continues to step 404.

If the end of data is reached but the completion flag “Done” is still false, flow continues to a set done step 418. At step 418, the completion flag “Done” is set to logical true, and flow continues to decision 412 where the last run-length will be output and flow will eventually exit through step 414, decision 416, decision 422, and then terminate at encode exit 428.

It is possible for the repeat count C to become larger than CMAX requiring more bits than allocated by this method. This situation is handled by making the “check count overflow” 412 decision and executing the “counter overflow” step 420. At step 420, the counter C is masked and bit-wise OR-ed with P shifted left by U bit positions and is placed in the A at the next available location as indexed by the encoded length L. Then, continuing inside flowchart step 414, L is incremented, and the repeat count C is decrement by CMAX. After step 420, flow continues to the “check count overflow” 412 decision. Thus when the encode value E repeats more than CMAX times, multiple sets of repeat counts and encoded values are output to the encoded data 140 buffer.

This entire process is repeated for each image or video frame selected during optional image sub-sampling (see 110 in FIG. 1) and the encoded length L is transmitted with the encoded data associated with each frame. The encoded length varies from frame to frame depending on the content of the image being encoded.

FIG. 4B—Image and Pixel Stream

FIG. 4B illustrates an image and its corresponding stream of pixels. A rectangular image 430 is composed of rows and columns of pixels. The image 430 has a width 440 and a height 450, both measured in pixels. In this illustrative embodiment, pixels in a row are accessed from left to right. Rows are accessed from top to bottom. Some pixels in the image are labeled from A to Z. Pixel A is the first pixel and pixel Z is the last pixel. Scanning left to right and top to bottom will produce a pixel stream 460. In the pixel stream 460, pixels A and B are adjacent. Also pixels N and O are adjacent even though they appear on different rows in the image. If adjacent pixels have the same code the process in FIG. 4A will consider them in the same run.

Because the video signal being digitized is analog there will be some loss of information in the analog to digital conversion. The video digitizing hardware can be configured to sample the analog data into the image 430 with almost any width 440 and any height 450. The present invention achieves most of its effective compression by sub-sampling the data image with the width 440 value less than the conventional 640 and the height 450 value less than the convention 480. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, for use in a medical application with T1 Internet transmission bandwidth, image dimensions are sub-sampled at 320 by 240. However an image dimension sub-sampling resolution of 80 by 60 may be suitable for some video application.

FIGS. 5A to 5C—Run-length Encoding Formats of the RHN Method

FIGS. 5A to 5C show use of a different structure than the present invention. FIGS. 5A to 5C show the formats for the run-length encoding of RHN. In FIG. 5A, a code byte 500, with its high order bit designated as a flag bit 510.

FIG. 5B shows a repeat code 520 comprising a Boolean value one in its flag bit 510 and a 7 bit count 530 in the remaining 7 low order bits. The seven bit count 530 can represent 128 values with a zero representing “128” and 1 through 127 being their own value.

FIG. 5C shows a data code 550 comprising:

-   -   1. a Boolean value zero in its flag bit 510     -   2. two unused data bits: data bit 6 reference by 565 and data         bit 5 reference by 570, and     -   3. five bits, data bits 4 to 0, reference by 575, 580, 585, 590,         and 595, respectively.

FIG. 5C shows that in every byte of the RHN data code 550 two bits are unused and one bit is used for the flag bit, so that only five of the eight bits are used for data. The remaining three bits are wasted bits 560. The present invention uses a different structure by placing the repeat count in bits that the RHN format would not have used for data (U). The corresponding ZLN format, ZL5 (where N is 5, U is 3, and W is 8), always uses five bits for data and the remaining 3 bits for the repeat count. In practice, repeat counts are small and often can fit in 3 bits, so this embodiment of the present invention will result in superior compression performance over the RHN method.

In addition, the present invention provides for a larger count when the bit filtering is larger. For example, the alternate ZLN format where each byte contains 4 data bits, ZL4 (where N is 4 and U is 4), allows for a four bits of repeat count. For example, in practice, ZL4 is superior to RHN on a typical ultrasound image containing 16 shades of gray.

FIGS. 5D to 5G—Doppler Improvement of ZLN Format

The ZLN format for encoding video signals (see for example FIG. 3A) has one disadvantage. When the video stream being compressed changes from only grayscale to grayscale overlaid with Doppler enhancement, the colors of the Doppler red and blue scales are also converted to grayscale. A Doppler improvement aspect of the present invention provides a variable means of encoding the Doppler enhanced image with in the data bits of a ZLN format.

FIG. 3A shows the ZLN format comprising N 300 and U 301 that make up a data element with a bit length of W 302.

The Doppler improvement aspect encodes the Doppler values in the N 300 portion of the ZLN format. However the scope of this invention should not be limited to using this technique with ZLN formats only as other compression formats are anticipated by this invention.

Doppler Encoding Format

The Doppler enhanced grayscale image must be captured as color data (see FIG. 2B). If the red, green, and blue values are the same, then the pixel is gray (e.g. FIG. 2G). If the red, green, and blue values are not equal, then the pixel is representing a red scale or blue scale value (e.g. FIG. 2F). By comparing the values of the red, green, and blue values, a red scale or blue scale value is determined.

In FIG. 5D, two bits, S 503, are used to indicate which scale the pixel is from. The high bit order bit, S1 501, is used to indicate that the value is a gray scale value: zero means grayscale (e.g. 515 in FIGS. 5E and 541 in FIG. 5F), one means Doppler (e.g. 525 and 535 in FIG. 5E). The low order bit, S0 502, is used to indicate red scale or blue scale: zero means red scale (e.g. 525 in FIG. 5E), one means blue scale (e.g. 535 in FIG. 5E). In the grayscale code 515, the value of the S0 bit is a don't care 512 and it can be coded as either a zero or a one. In combination with the ZLN format, the remaining bits of W are used for a repeat count, C (FIG. 5G).

An alternate embodiment of this invention uses lookup tables rather selecting the most significant bits. Instead of one encode (e.g. FIG. 11A) and one decode table (e.g. FIG. 11B) as used in ZLN, a set of tables is used for each scale, gray, red, and blue, respectively. FIG. 11C shows an example of a red scale decode table.

In an alternate embodiment, S0 is used as an additional bit of grayscale resolution since S0 502 is not used in the grayscale case 545 (FIG. 5F).

In a method where W is the number of bits in a native machine data type, and N is the number of significant grayscale bits, two bits, S 503, are used to indicate which scale the pixel is from. The high bit order bit S1 501 is used to indicate that the value is a gray scale value: zero means grayscale 515, one means Doppler 525 and 535. The low order bit, S0 502, is used to indicate red scale or blue scale: zero means red scale 525, one means blue scale 535. In the ZLN combination, the remaining unused bits, U, are used for a repeat count, C, such that W equals 2+N+U (FIG. 5G).

N bits of the blue component of the pixel value is used to index into a blue encode table to obtain the encoded value, E. In the ZLN method, if E is repeated, a repeat count, C, is incremented.

X 557 is a concatenation of S1, S0, E, and C.

In this embodiment, like the ZLN method, the pixels of the frame are processed pixel by pixel as disclosed in reference to FIGS. 4A and 4B. When a value, E, is not repeated X is placed in the next location in the compression array with a repeat count, C, equal to one.

Three decode tables that correspond to the grayscale, red scale, and blue scale encode tables contain the data necessary to reconstruct the original value for the appropriate image. If the target color image format is W*4 bit color (FIG. 2A), then the decode table has W bits for alpha 208, red 206, green 204, and blue 202 each, respectively. If the target color image format is W*3 bit color, then the alpha value is not used. If the image is W bit grayscale than only the grayscale value is used to create the decompressed and decoded image.

To decode and decompress, the encoded data is processed W bits at a time as X. S1, S0, E, and C are extracted from X with appropriate masks and shifts. If S1 is zero indicating grayscale, E is used as an index into the gray scale decode table. If S1 is one indicating Doppler and S0 is zero indicating red scale Doppler, E is used as an index into the red scale decode table (FIG. 11C). If S1 is one indicating Doppler and S0 is one indicating blue scale Doppler, E is used as an index into the blue scale decode table (not shown, but with the proper values in the blue bit column 1126). The decoded value is placed into the decoded and decompressed image. Each X is processed in order until the compressed array length, L, has been processed.

FIG. 6—Encoded Data Stream

FIG. 6 shows a series of exemplary decimal values 610 comprising a first value 620 equal to decimal 0, a second value 622 equal to 0, a third value 624 equal to 0, a fourth value 626 equal to 0, a fifth value 628 equal to 0, a sixth value 630 equal to 2, and a seventh value 632 equal to 10. The value of zero is merely exemplary and could be any binary value. After the encoding step 130 (FIG. 1), the corresponding encoded data 140 (FIG. 1) would be compressed down to three bytes of binary code 640 comprising a first byte 650, a second byte 653, and a third byte 656 each containing a merged value and count, (651, 652), (654, 655), and (657, 658), respectively. The first data 651 has a binary value of “00000” which equals the exemplary repeated decimal value. The first count 652 has a binary value “101” which equals decimal five representing the run-length of the repeating value in the first five of the decimal values 610. The second data 654 has a binary value of “00010” which equals the non-repeated decimal value two. The second count 655 has a value of 1. The third data 657 has a binary value of “01010” which equals the non-repeated decimal value ten. The third count 658 has a value of 1.

FIG. 7—RHN Codes and Encoded Stream

FIG. 7 shows the same series of decimal values 610 (FIG. 6) comprising the first value 620 equal to decimal 0, the second value 622 equal to 0, the third value 624 equal to 0, the fourth value 626 equal to 0, the fifth value 628 equal to 0, the sixth value 630 equal to 2, and the seventh value 632 equal to 10. After encoding by RHN, the corresponding encoded data 140 (FIG. 1) would be compressed down to four bytes of RHN binary code 740.

The embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG. 6 only requires three bytes to encode the same data. In this example, the present invention is 25% better than the RHN format.

FIGS. 8A and 8B—ZLN Formats

The ZLN aspect of the present invention provides for variable formats. The values of N 300, U 301, and W 302 can be dynamically changed between frames. For ease of communication a format is named with the prefix “ZL” and a digit representing the value of N. For example, “ZL5” refers to a format where bit width of N is equal to 5. There are multiple values of U depending of the W. To also specify the bit width of U a hyphen and a number can be appended. For example, “ZL5-13” represents a format where N=5 and U=13. “ZL5-3” is a common format and may be imprecisely referred to as “ZL5.”

FIG. 8A shows a number of formats with adjacent labels: ZL3 803, ZL4 804, ZL5 805, ZL8 808, ZL9 809, and ZL12 812. Data bits are represented by “D,” and count bits are represented by “C”.

FIG. 8B shows how the most significant 3 bits of each color component (216, 214, and 212 of FIG. 2B) are extracted and formatted in ZL9-7C format (the “C” append indicates that the color is preserved). With three red bits represented by “R”, three green bits represented “G” and three blue bits represented by “B”.

Decoding

To decode the compressed array, the decoder has a decode table that corresponds with the encode table. For W*4 bit color pixels, the decode table contains the appropriate alpha, red, green, and blue values. For W*3 bit color pixels, the alpha value is not used. The compressed array is processed W bits at a time as X. The repeat count, C, is extracted from X by masking off the data value (C=X & (((2**N)−1)<<U)). The encoded value, E, is extracted from X by masking off the count (E=X & ((2**U)−1)). The encoded value, E may be used to index into the decryption. The decoded pixels are placed in a reconstructed image and repeated C times. Each element of the compressed array, A, is processed until its entire length, L, has been processed.

FIG. 9—Decode Flowchart

FIG. 9 illustrates the decode flowchart 920 which presents the details of the decryption embodiment of the decode step 160 (FIG. 1) and the image reconstitution step 180 (FIG. 1).

The decoding begins at a decode entry 900. In a “decode initialization” step 901, a repeat counter C is set to one, an encoded length L is set to the value obtained with the encoded data 140 (FIG. 1), and an index I is set to 0. Next, a “get code” step 902 obtains a signed byte X from the encoded data 140 (FIG. 1) array A. The index I is incremented. The count (for example the 3-bit count 380 as shown in FIG. 3B) is extracted from X by masking off the data bits and placed in the repeat counter C (C=X & ((2**N)−1<<U). The value of E is extracted from X by masking off the count bits (E=X & (2**U)−1). In practice, the count mask and value mask can be pre-computed with the following two lines of code in the C programming language:

valueMask = −1 << U; countMask = ~valueMask;

In this illustrative decryption embodiment of the present invention, flow goes to a “decode lookup” step 908 where the value of E is used to index into the decode table 1110 (FIG. 11, shown as decryption table) to obtain a pixel value V. In the other embodiments where E is not encrypted, E is used as V and step 908 is bypassed. Flow continues to a “check zero count” 909 decision.

The 909 decision always fails the first time ensuring that a place pixel step 910 is executed. The place pixel step 910 places the pixel value V in the next location of the decompressed image and decrements the repeat counter C and returns to the 909 decision. The pixel value V is placed repeatedly until C decrements to zero. Then the 909 decision branches flow to a “reset counter” step 914. At step 914 the repeat counter is reset to 1.

Flow continues to the “check length” 916 decision where the index I is compared to the encoded length L to determine if there are more codes to be processed. If I is less than L flow returns to step 902, otherwise the decode process terminates at a “decode exit” 918.

The entire decode process is repeated for each encoded frame image.

FIG. 10—Interpolation

FIG. 10 illustrates interpolation when two adjacent pixels 1010 and 1012 and two subsequent row adjacent pixels 1014 and 1016 are stretched to insert a new row and column of pixels.

Pixels 1052, 1054, 1056, 1058 and 1060 are inserted due to the enlargement of the image. Their values are calculated by averaging the values of the two pixels above and below or to the left or the right of the new pixel. A preferred sequence is calculation of:

-   1. 1052 between 1010 and 1012 -   2. 1054 between 1010 and 1014     3. 1058 between 1012 and 1016     4. 1056 between 1054 and 1058 -   Pixel 1060 can be calculated on the interpolation for the subsequent     row.     FIG. 11—Encryption

By using corresponding encoding and decoding tables the data can be encrypted and decrypted without using actual values. Encryption provides a level of security for the encoded data 140 while in storage or transit.

FIG. 11 shows an example of an encryption table 1100, where N is 3 and W is 8, and a decryption table 1110, where N is 3 and U is 5.

The encode table 1100 is 2 to the power of N in length. If the target color image format is W*4 bit color, then the decode table 1110 has W bits for alpha, red, green, and blue each, respectively. If the target color image format is W*3 bit color, then the alpha value is not used. If the image is W bit grayscale then only the grayscale value is used to create the decompressed and decoded image.

The corresponding table elements are mapped to each other. For example, 0 could encode to 22 as long as the 22^(nd) element of the decode table returns (∅xff<<24|∅<<16|∅<<8|∅).

When these versions of the tables are used, the encode and decode processes and their speed of execution are substantially the same but the encoded data 140 (FIG. 1) becomes a cipher and has a higher level of security. It should be recognized by one with ordinarily skill in the art that there are other embodiments of the present invention with different encryption/decryption table rearrangements.

FIGS. 12A through 12D—Compression and Decompression Devices

FIGS. 12A and 12B show devices for compressing and decompressing, respectively, a stream of video frames.

FIG. 12A shows a video signal 1215 being compressed and encoded by a compressor 1210 to form an encoded data stream 1235, which is sent to an I/O device 1240. The video signal 1215 comprises a series of video frames 1200, shown as first video frame 1205 a, second video frame 1205 b, . . . through nth video frame 1205 n. The encoded data stream 1235 comprises a series of encoded data 1220, shown as first encoded data 1225 a, second encoded data 1225 b, . . . , through nth encoded data 1225 n.

FIG. 12B shows an input encoded data stream 1245 being received from an I/O device 1240, and then, decoded and decompressed by a decompressor 1250 to form a video sequence 1270. The input encoded data stream 1245 comprises received encoded data 1238, shown as first received encoded data 1230 a, second received encoded data 1230 b, . . . , through nth received encoded data 1230 n. The video sequence 1270 comprises a series of decoded video frames 1268, shown as first decoded video frame 1260 a, second decoded video frame 1260 b, . . . , through nth decoded video frame 1260 n.

FIG. 12C shows an embodiment where the I/O device 1240 of FIGS. 12A and 12B is a storage medium 1280. The encoded data stream 1235 from the compressor 1210 is stored in the storage medium 1280. The storage medium 1280 provides the input encoded data stream 1245 as input to the decompressor 1250.

FIG. 12D shows an embodiment where the I/O device 1240 of FIGS. 12A and 12B is a communications channel 1290. The encoded data stream 1235 from the compressor 1210 is transmitted over the communications channel 1290. The communications channel 1290 provides the input encoded data stream 1245 as input to the decompressor 1250.

FIGS. 13A through 13J—Compressor Details, Encoding Circuit, and Bitwise Pixel Sub-Samplers

FIG. 13A shows details of an embodiment of the compressor 1210, which comprises a video digitizer 1310, a video memory 1330, an encoding circuit 1350, and encoded data 1370. Each video frame 1205 in the series of video frames 1200 is digitized by the video digitizer 1310 and stored along path 1320 in the video memory 1330. The encoding circuit 1350 access the digitized video frame via path 1340 and outputs the encoded data 1370 along path 1360. The encoded data 1225 corresponding to each video frame 1205 is then output from the compressor 1210.

FIG. 13B shows further details of an embodiment of the encoding circuit 1350. A pixel sub-sampler 1380 scans each pixel from the digitized video frame in the video memory 1330. A pixel index 1332 is used to drive a scan 1331 signal to select each pixel from the video memory, in a predetermined sequence. A novel aspect of the present invention is that the compression method can be accomplished with a single scan of the video memory for each frame. The pixel sub-sampler 1380 selects a predetermined number of bits from each pixel and outputs the data value along path 1385. Alternatively, the pixel sub-sampler 1380 encodes the sub-sampled data by using a lookup table similar to FIG. 11A. Different pixel sub-samplers 1380 will be discussed in reference to FIGS. 13C through 13J. The data/count 1390 unit increments the count each time the output of the pixel sub-sampler 1380 is the same; otherwise, when the output of the pixel sub-sampler 1380 is different (or when the counter reaches the maximum count value, the data and count are combined as a code and output along path 1395 to the encoded data 1225 for the frame currently in the video memory 1330. The location of the code in the encoded data 1225 is selected by the code index 1392 signal.

FIG. 13C shows further details of a generic pixel sub-sampler 1380. When a pixel is scanned from video memory along path 1340, it has an original pixel bit width, P. A pixel extractor 1382 extracts a subset of bits from each pixel with a value bit width, V, along value path 1383. The value bit width V is less than the pixel bit width P. A coder 1384 takes the V bits from the pixel path 1383 and outputs a code with an encoded bit width, E, as the data value along path 1385. One embodiment of the coder is a null coder, or pass-through coder. Another embodiment of the coder uses an encryption table to encrypt the data value as an encrypted data value.

FIGS. 13D through 13J show embodiments of pixel sub-samplers.

FIG. 13D illustrates a 24 to 5 bit sub-sampler 1380 a, where the pixel bit width, P, is 24; the value bit width, V, output from the pixel extractor 1382 is 8 (see FIG. 2H); and the encoded bit width, E, output from the coder 1384 is 5. In this embodiment, the extracted 8 bits could be any component of the grayscale (e.g. FIG. 2G) or the high order 8 bits of the 24-bit value.

FIG. 13E illustrates a 24-bit RGB to 5 bit sub-sampler 1380 b, where the pixel bit width, P, is 24 divided into 8 bits of red, green, and blue (RGB, see FIG. 2B); the value bit width, V, output from the pixel extractor 1382 is 8; and the encoded bit width, E, output from the coder 1384 is 5. In this embodiment, the extracted 8 bits could be an average (e.g. FIG. 2C) or one of the colors (e.g. FIG. 2D, 2E, or 2F).

FIG. 13F illustrates a 32-bit RGB to 5 bit sub-sampler 1380 c, where the pixel bit width, P, is 32 divided into 8 bits of red, green, blue, and alpha (see FIG. 2A); the value bit width, V, output from the pixel extractor 1382 is 8; and the encoded bit width, E, output from the coder 1384 is 5. In this embodiment, the extracted 8 bits could be an average (e.g. FIG. 2C) or one of the colors (e.g. FIG. 2D, 2E, or 2F).

FIG. 13G illustrates a color 9-bit sub-sampler 1380 d, where the pixel bit width, P, is 24 divided into 8 bits each of red, green, and blue; the value bit width, V, output from the pixel extractors 1382 is 9; and the encoded bit width, E, output from the coder 1384 is 9. In this embodiment, the high order 3 bits of each color component are selected (e.g. ZL9C shown FIG. 8B).

FIG. 13H illustrates a YUV sub-sampler 1380 e, where the pixel bit width, P, is 24 divided into 8 bits for each of YUV; the value bit width, V, output from the pixel extractors 1382 is 8; and the encoded bit width, E, output from the coder 1384 is 5. In this embodiment, four bits of the Y value is extracted and 2 bits of each of the U and V values are extracted. This 8 bit value is further coded as a 5 bit value.

FIG. 13I illustrates a 36-bit RGB to 24-bit sub-sampler 1380 f, where the pixel bit width, P, is 36 divided into 12 bits each of red, green, and blue; the value bit width, V, output from the pixel extractors 1382 is 24; and the encoded bit width, E, output from the coder 1384 is also 24. In this embodiment, the high order 8 bits of each 12-bit color component are selected.

FIG. 13J illustrates a 15-bit sub-sampler 1380 g, where the pixel bit width, P, is 24 divided into 8 bits from each color component; the value bit width, V, output from the pixel extractor 1382 is 15; and the encoded bit width, E, output from the coder 1384 is 15. In this embodiment, the high order 5 bits of each 8-bit color component are selected.

FIGS. 14A Through 14C—Variable Selection of Bit-wise Sub-sampling

FIGS. 14A through 14C show embodiments of a device for variably altering the number of bits.

FIG. 14A illustrates 24-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1400. When a pixel is scanned from video memory along path 1340, it has an original pixel bit width, P, equal to 24 bits. These 24 bits are passed as input to a number of sub-samplers. The variable number of bits is selected by a number of bits selector 1410 as indicated by a number of bits indicator 1420 and outputs a code with an variable encoded bit width, E, as the data value along path 1385. A user at remote receiver 1610 sets the number of bits indicator 1420 (see discussion regarding FIGS. 16A and 16B). The variable bit sub-sampler comprises a generic 3-bit sub-sampler 1401, a generic 4-bit sub-sampler 1402, generic 8-bit sub-sampler 1403, and generic 10-bit sub-sampler 1404 which are embodiments of the generic sub-sampler shown in FIG. 13C with specific values for E. The variable bit sub-sampler further comprises nested sub-samplers: the 24 to 5 bit sub-sampler 1380 a of FIG. 13D, the 1380 d of FIG. 13G, and the 15-bit sub-sampler 1380 g of FIG. 13J. This is illustrative of the types of bit sub-samplers that can be variably selected.

Likewise, FIG. 14B illustrates a 36-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1430, where P is 36 and the number of bits that can be selected are 12, 15, or 24, respectively.

FIG. 14C shows that the 24-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1400 of FIG. 14A and the 36-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1430 of FIG. 14B can be further combined to form at 24/36 bit variable bit sub-sampler 1440 where a second selector 1450 is used to selected either the 24 bit inputs or the 36 bit inputs using selection logic 1460 that also receives the number of bits indicator 1420. A selection signal 1470 enables either the output of 24-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1400 or the output of 36-bit to variable bit sub-sampler 1430. Sub-samplers 1400 and 1430 both receive the number of bits indicator 1420 as shown in FIG. 14A and FIG. 14B. In this way any number of bits may reasonably be selected from either a 36 or 24-bit pixel bit width.

FIG. 15—Decompressor Elements

FIG. 15 shows details of an embodiment of the decompressor 1250, which comprises a decoding circuit 1510 which inputs received encoded data 1230 and outputs decoded pixel values 1520 to an image memory 1540. A decoder pixel index 1530 selects the location in the image memory 1540 to store the decoded pixels values 1520. The image memory 1540 delivers each decoded video frame 1260 to the video display.

FIGS. 16A and 16B—Parameters Altered by a Remote Receiver

FIG. 16A shows a system for setting width, height, frame rate, brightness, and contrast in a transmitter 1600 which are variably altered by a receiver 1610. The receiver sends commands to the transmitter 1600 via setting control path 1615. The commands alter the transmitter settings 1660.

The settings 1660 include brightness 1661, contrast 1662, height 1663, width 1664, and frame rate 1665. The brightness 1661, contrast 1662, height 1663, and width 1664 setting alter the attributes of each frame as it is digitized in a frame sub-sampler 1620. The brightness 1661 and contrast 1662 settings alter the video digitizer 1310 (FIG. 13A) as it senses the video frame. The height 1663 and 1664 allow for optionally selecting a subset area of each frame; this is area sub-sampling. Alternatively, height 1663 and 1664 allow for optionally selecting a subset of pixels from an array of pixels that make up a single frame, by skipping pixels in a row or by skipping rows; this is image sub-sampling. The frame rate 1665 setting alters the frame selector 1670 which drives the frame select indicator 1675 to optionally sub-sample frames from a sequence of video frames; this is frame sub-sampling.

The frame sub-sampler 1620 outputs a selected frame 1630 along path 1621. The transmitter pixel sub-sampler 1640 scans the selected frame 1630 getting each pixel from frame 1632 and outputs data values along path 1642 to a run length encoder 1650. The encoded data stream 1235 is then transmitted to the remote receiver 1610.

FIG. 16B shows additional elements of a system for setting the number of pixel bits in an alternate transmitter 1690 which is variably altered by a receiver 1610. The receiver sends commands to the transmitter 1600 via setting control path 1615. The commands alter the transmitter settings 1660. The settings include a number of pixel bits setting 1680 which affect the number of bits selected by the transmitter pixel sub-sampler 1640. The pixel sub-sampler 1640 could be any pixel sub-sampler, for example, see FIG. 13C through 13J and 14A through 14C. The transmitter pixel sub-sampler 1640 scans the selected frame 1630 (as in FIG. 16A) getting each pixel from frame 1632 and outputs data values along path 1642 to a run length encoder 1650. The encoded data stream 1235 is then transmitted to the remote receiver 1610.

These embodiments illustrate the novel feature of the present invention of allowing a user at a remote receiver 1610 to control aspects of the transmitter 1600 or 1690 from a remote location, including brightness, contrast, frame dimensions, frame rate, image area, and the type of compression used.

FIG. 17—Further Lossless Compression Step

FIG. 17 shows a lossless compression step for further compressing an encoded data buffer. After a run-length encoding step 1700 in the transmitter, a run-length encoded output 1710 can be further processed with a further lossless compression step 1720 resulting in further lossless compression output 1730. The further lossless compression step 1720 could be implemented as a variable length coding, arithmetic coding, or other compression step known in the art.

FIG. 18—Image Stretching

FIG. 18 shows images being enlarged by stretching. An unstretched frame 1800 is stretched during stretching step 1820 resulting in an enlarged image 1810. When a frame is image sub-sampled or area sub-sampled, the remaining data can be stretched to fill the full display area on the receiver 1610. This results in an interpolated image or magnified image, respectively.

Distinguishable Characteristics

Most video images contain regions that are distinguishable from the other pixels that make up an image. Sometimes the distinguishing characteristic is the importance of the region to the viewer. In video conferencing, for example, the face region may be of most importance to the viewer. In medical imaging such as ultrasound, the generated image in the center of the display may be of most importance to the viewer. Sometimes the distinguishing characteristic is the compressibility of the regions. Sometimes the distinguishing characteristic is the color depth of the regions. Sometimes the distinguishing characteristic is the rate of change of the regions. Other distinguishing characteristics, such as markers, have been mentioned above.

The following are additional examples of distinguishable characteristics.

When watching a sporting event the motion of the players or the ball is much more important than the playing surface or the background audience. If the region of interest is generally distinguishable based on color range, brightness range, or position on the screen, those regions could be updated more quickly or compressed with more detail while the remaining regions of less importance are compressed or displayed in a way that requires less resources.

When watching a news broadcast or interview the region of the “talking head” or a graphic display may be the region of most interest to viewers.

A region of solid color or grayscale value compresses more efficiently than a series of varying values. This is true of the ZLN compression method. If the regions are distinguished based on their compressibility, different compression methods can be applied to each region.

Grayscale pixel values can be stored in 8 bits while the corresponding quality of color pixel is often stored in 24 or 32 bits. If the regions are distinguished based on their storage requirements (also known as color depth, or bit depth), a significant space or bandwidth saving can be made.

A Doppler enhanced image such as a weather map or an ultrasound medical image is synthesized by the Doppler circuitry. In the case of a weather map, the underlying image does not change but the Doppler enhanced velocity scales do change from frame to frame. In the case of Doppler enhanced ultrasound image, the underlying grayscale ultrasound image changes more frequently than the circuitry can calculate and display the Doppler information. If the Doppler and non-Doppler regions are processed separately the overall effective compression sizes and transmission times can be reduced.

Plane Separation

An aspect of the present invention teaches that by separating each distinguishable region of a video frame into separate planes and applying different compression methods that are optimal for each resulting plane, the overall effective compression and transmission speeds can be increased.

FIG. 19A

FIG. 19A shows an example of an original image 1900. In this simple example, the image is comprised of a grayscale region 1902 that contains a grayscale triangle 1904, a red oval 1910 and a blue circle 1912. The red oval 1910 and the blue circle 1912 are distinguishable from the rest of the image because their red, green, and blue component values are different and need to be stored in 24 (or 32) bits. The remaining region has equivalent values in the red, green, and blue component values for each pixel and therefore can be reduced to 8 bits and still maintain the full quality. In this example, the grayscale pixels are separated along a first path 1915 to a first plane 1920, and the color pixels from the red oval 1910 and the blue circle 1912 are separated along a second path 1925 to a second plane 1930. In the first plane 1920, the unselected (e.g. color) pixel locations are filled with a mask value, such as black, leaving a sold region of repeating values that will compress well with a compression method such as ZLN. In the second plane 1930, the unselected pixels are filled with a mask value, such as white. The color chosen for the mask value generally does not matter because those pixels are overlaid (in the base plane) or ignored (in the overlay plane) prior to display.

The mask values could be any value that is known to be a mask by the decompressor at decompression time. The mask value can be predetermined or encoded with the compressed plane.

As stated above, the distinguishing characteristic is not limited to grayscale versus color and could vary over time in the same video program. It is also within the scope of this invention to separate the original image 1900 into more than two planes.

FIG. 19B

FIG. 19B illustrates the compression, storage or transmission, decompression, and composition of the separated planes. The original image 1900 is separated into two or more planes as explained above. Each plane is then compressed with a compression method that is optimum for its distinguishing characteristics. These compression methods could be: one well known in the art, one of a co-pending patent application, or a current or future proprietary one. The first plane 1920 is compressed using a first compression method 1940 resulting in a first encoded data 1950. The second plane 1930 is compressed using a second compression method 1945 resulting in a second encoded data 1955. The encoded data could be stored in a storage medium such as a computer memory, a hard drive or CD-ROM, or transferred across a network as a part of a video stream. A composite buffer 1960 represents either the encoded data on a storage medium or the data being transferred over the network, and may also include audio or textual data associated with the video.

Upon decompression, the first encoded data 1950 is decompressed with a first decompression method 1970 that corresponds with the first compression method 1940, resulting in a first decoded image 1980. The second encoded data 1955 is decompressed with a second decompression method 1975 that corresponds with the second compression method 1945, resulting in a second decoded image 1985. Typically, the first decoded image 1980 is the base image and will be composed along a copy path 1990 with the second decoded image 1985 along an overlay path 1995 which removes the masked pixels and overlays the base image with the remaining pixels to form a combined image 1999. Except for effects of the various compression methods, the combined image 1999 will be substantially representative of the original image 1900.

FIG. 20

FIG. 20 shows a flow chart for an embodiment of the method of the present invention. The chart begins at an entry point 2000 and continues along path 2002 to a “get pixel” step 2004 where the next pixel from the original image 1900 is obtained. Flow continues along path 2006 to a “which plane” decision 2008. If the distinguishing characteristic of the current pixel indicates that it should be separated to the first plane, flow continues along path 2010 to an “add to first buffer” step 2012 where the pixel is added to the first buffer. Flow continues, along path 2014, to a “put mask in second buffer” step 2016 where the mask value for the second plane is written to the second buffer. Flow continues along path 2018 to an “increment buffer pointers” step 2030.

However, if the distinguishing characteristic of the current pixel indicates that it should be separated to the second plane 1930, flow continues along path 2020 to an “add to second buffer” step 2022 where the pixel is added to the second buffer. Flow continues, along path 2024, to a “put mask in first buffer” step 2026 where the mask value for the first plane is written to the first buffer. Flow continues along path 2028 to the “increment buffer pointers” step 2030.

After separating the pixel to the appropriate plane and masking the other plane, at the “increment buffer pointers” step 2030, the pointers to the input buffer, the first buffer, and the second buffer are incremented to point to the next location in each respective buffer. Flow continues along path 2032 to a “done” decision 2040.

If there are more pixels in the input buffer, flow continues, along path 2050, to the “get pixel” step 2004 until each pixel has been separated. After all the pixels are separated into their respective planes, flow continues along path 2060 to a “compress first buffer” step 2062 and then along path 2064 to a “compress second buffer” step and then terminates along path 2068 at an exit point (“finish”) 2070.

It would be clear to one skilled in the art that the order of above steps could be changed with the same result. For example, anywhere an action is done with the first buffer and then another action to the second buffer, the steps could be done in the reverse order.

FIG. 21

FIG. 21 illustrates an example of how different planes can be decompressed at different frame rates. In this example, four original images: the original image 1900, a second original image 2101, a third original image 2111, and a fourth original image 2121, respectively, make up a sequence of video frames, an input video stream 2180.

As explained above, the original image 1900 (labeled I1) is separated into the first plane 1920 (labeled I1-1) and the second plane 1930 (labeled I1-2). The first plane 1920 is compressed, transferred to storage or across a network, and decompressed as the first decoded image 1980 (labeled 01-1). The combined steps of compression, transfer, and decompression are represented by a first transfer 2100.

The second plane 1930 is compressed, transferred to storage or across a network, and decompressed as the second decoded image 1985 (labeled 01-2). The combined steps of compression, transfer, and decompression are represented by a second transfer 2110.

The first and second decoded images, 1980 and 1985 respectively, are combined as explained above to form the combined image 1999 (labeled 01).

The second original image 2101 (labeled I2) is separated into a second first plane 2102 (labeled I2-1) and a second second plane 2103 (labeled I2-2). The second first plane 2102 is compressed, transferred to storage or across a network, and decompressed as a second first decoded image 2105 (labeled 02-1). The combined steps of compression, transfer, and decompression are represented by a third transfer 2120.

The second second plane 2103 is not transferred. In the case where the region of the second plane is of less interest to the viewer, this plane of this frame can be skipped (or dropped) to reduce the storage space or network bandwidth required. In the case of Doppler enhanced ultrasound, this plane may have not been changed by the generating circuitry (as explained above) and when the lack of change is detected (by comparing with the data of the previous frame, or by notification from the ultrasound device) this plane of this frame can be skipped. In the general case where encoded color data is more resource intensive than encoded grayscale data, the encoded color data may simply be skipped periodically just to reduce the overall resources required for the video stream.

Because the second second plane 2103 is not transferred, the second first decoded image 2105 (which is newer than the first decoded image 1980) is combined with the older second plane data, in this case the second decoded image 1985 as shown by a “reuse of second decoded image” path 2106. This results in a second combined image 2107 (labeled 02).

The second combined image 2107 is not necessarily a close representation of the second original image 2101 but is a close approximation and will quickly be replaced by a more accurate combined image 2117.

A third original image 2111 (labeled I3) is handled in the same manner as the original image 1900. The third original image 2111 is separated into a third first plane 2112 (labeled I3-1) and a third second plane 2113 (labeled I3-2). The third first plane 2112 is compressed, transferred to storage or across a network, and decompressed as a third first decoded image 2115 (labeled 03-1). The combined steps of compression, transfer, and decompression are represented by a fourth transfer 2130.

The third second plane 2113 is compressed, transferred to storage or across a network, and decompressed as a third second decoded image 2116 (labeled 03-2). The combined steps of compression, transfer, and decompression are represented by a fifth transfer 2140.

The third set of first and second decoded images, 2115 and 2116 respectively, are combined, as explained above, to form a third combined image 2117 (labeled 03).

A fourth original image 2121 (labeled I4) is handled in the same manner as the second original image 2101. The fourth original image 2121 is separated into a fourth first plane 2122 (labeled I4-1) and a fourth second plane 2123 (labeled I4-2). The fourth first plane 2122 is compressed, transferred to storage or across a network, and decompressed as a fourth first decoded image 2125 (labeled 04-1). The combined steps of compression, transfer, and decompression are represented by a sixth transfer 2150.

The fourth second plane 2123 is not transferred, as explained above, regarding the second second plane 2103.

Because the fourth second plane 2123 is not transferred, the fourth first decoded image 2125 (which is newer than the third decoded image 2115), is combined with the older second plane data, in this case the third second decoded image 2116, as shown by a “reuse of third decoded image” path 2126. This results in a fourth combined image 2127 (labeled 04).

The fourth combined image 2127 is not necessarily a close representation of the fourth original image 2121, as explained above.

Thus, in this example, an input video stream 2180 (comprising frames I1, I2, I3, and I4) is compressed, transferred, and decompressed to an output video stream 2190 (comprising frames 01, 02, 03, and 04). However, only six of the eight separated planes are transferred. In some cases, especially when the characteristics of the second plane are resource intensive, this will result in a substantial reduction in the amount of resources required to store or transmit the video stream, without substantially reducing the value or quality of the video stream.

Although not shown in FIG. 21, the present invention teaches that images may be sampled at two independent rates where the first plane is extracted only from images at a first sample rate and the second plane is extracted only from images at a second sample rate. For example, if an ultrasound machine is known to generate the grayscale image at 24 frames per second and to generate the Doppler overlay at 10 frames per second, the grayscale plane can be extracted from the current image 24 times per second, and the color plane can be extracted 10 times a second. It is anticipated that the image generation circuitry of the ultrasound device could signal the image sampler each time the respective images are generated. It is also anticipated that the grayscale base image and the Doppler overlay image could be fed directly into the present invention along the first path 1915 and the second path 1925 skipping the step normally performed by the ultrasound device that creates the original image 1900.

FIG. 22A

FIG. 22A illustrates a system for user selection of separation regions. In this alternate embodiment of the present invention, the region of the image to be separated is selected by a user input 2200. The user could be either a video producer who is compressing a video stream for storage, a viewer who is receiving a video stream at a remote site, a broadcaster who is transmitting a video stream, or similar person who is empowered with the ability to control the plane separation. A system of allowing user input of the separate regions comprises the following:

-   -   1) a display 2230 that allows the user to see the video and         optionally view a selection indicator. The display could show         both the uncompressed video and the results of the separation         and separate compression methods and frame rates.     -   2) an image source 2220 that provides a stream of multiple         original image 100 frames.     -   3) the user input 2200 that allows the user to select one or         more regions that are to be separated. The user selection         becomes the distinguishing characteristic used in applying the         present invention.     -   4) a display generator 2210 that combines the image source 2220         with the selection indicator from the user input 2200 to drive         the display 2230. The display generator could also display the         results of the separate plane compression method of the present         invention.     -   5) a control data 2240 is generated by the display generator         2210 based on the user input 2200. The control data 2240         describes the user's selection. Typically, the control data         would be encoded into a protocol understood by the means for         separating the planes. For example, if the selection region was         a rectangle, the coordinates for opposing corners of the         rectangle could be encoded along with the indication that the         selection shape was a rectangle.

The user input 2200 is connected to the display generator 2210 via a user input path 2205. Examples of user input 2200 devices include keyboards, mice, trackballs, touchpads, touch screens, eye motion sensors, voice commands, and the like. The user input path 2205 for each of these types of devices are known in the art.

The image source 2220 is connected to the display generator 2210 via an image source path 2215. The image source path 2215 is known in the art, including, but not limited to, composite video, S-Video, DV, mini-DV, video digitizers, USB, FireWire, serial port, parallel port, and the like.

The display 2230 is connected to the display generator 2210 via a display path 2225. Typically the display generator would be a computing device such as a desktop computer or a TV set top box and would be connected to the computer monitor or television set, respectively. The present invention anticipates that there are many embodiments of the display generator and the display including, but not limited to, video phones, satellite TV, cable TV, video conferencing systems, ultrasound machines, weather displays, air traffic control systems, law enforcement systems, military systems, game consoles, and the like.

The control data 2240 is generated by the display generator 2210, along a control data path 2235. If the user is using a single device to compress the video stream, the control data 2240 is passed internally to the means for separating the planes. If the user is a remote viewer, as in the video conferencing example, the control data 2240 is sent via the network, or the video conferencing connection, to the transmitter where the means for separating the planes is located, allowing the planes to be separated and then compressed and transferred separately.

The user input 2200 allows the user to specify the shape, size, or location of the selection region. The user could manipulate the user input 2200 to enable and disable the display of a selection indicator. The selection indicator could be the outline of the region is contrasting color. The contrasting color could be a solid color such as red, or it could be filter applied to each pixel of the selection indicator. Examples of filters are inverse (where the inverse color value replaces the pixel), lighten (where each pixel value is made brighter), darken (where each pixel value is made darker), or a similar filter as known in the art.

One user input 2200 example of particular interest is the eye motion sensor, because as the video stream is being viewed the eye movement of the user can be immediately detected and used to select the region of interest of the viewer.

FIG. 22B through FIG. 22G

FIG. 22B through 22G show examples of various selection shapes. FIG. 22B shows a selection shape that matches a human head and shoulders, namely a bust region 2250. The bust region 2250 is separated into one plane while a background region 2260 is separated into another plane.

FIG. 22C shows an oval region 2270. The oval region 2270 is separated into one plane while a background region 2260 is separated into another plane.

FIG. 22D shows a rectangular region 2290. The rectangular region 2290 is separated into one plane while a background region 2260 is separated into another plane.

FIG. 22E shows a combined region 2299, composed of the union of the oval region 2270 and the rectangular region 2290. The combined region 2299 is separated into one plane while a background region 2260 is separated into another plane.

FIG. 22F shows an embodiment using the medical ultrasound image example described above. FIG. 22F shows two selection shapes: an outer region 2280 and an inner region 2282, enclosed by the outer region 2280. The inner region 2282 is separated into one plane, the outer region 2280 is separated into a second plane (with the inner region masked), and the background region is separated into a third plane (with the outer region and the inner region masked). In this example all three planes could be compressed with separate compression methods and transferred at different rates. For example, the plane corresponding to the background region 2260 could be compressed with a lower quality, lossy compression and transferred at 1 frame per second, the plane corresponding to the outer region 2280 could be compressed with a lower color depth compression and transferred at 24 frames per second, and the plane corresponding to the inner region 2282 could be compressed with a higher quality, lossless compression and transferred at 10 frames per second. When the ultrasound device is in Doppler enhancement mode, the inner region 2282 contains the Doppler enhancement and is the region of most interest to the viewer (i.e. the doctor).

In yet another embodiment, after the image is separated in the three regions shown in FIG. 22F, the inner region 2282 could be further separated into regions using color depth distinction (as explained in reference to FIG. 19A), resulting in four planes, namely background, outer, inner grayscale, and inner color.

FIG. 22G shows a detailed example of the talking heads (video conferencing, TV interview or TV news broadcast) example described above. Similar to FIG. 22B, the region of interest centers on the bust region 2250. However, FIG. 22F shows an alternative embodiment of the invention where the image is analyzed to identify several regions. Region selection could be based on color similarity such as hair and face tones, based on compressibility, based on edge detection, or another technique known in the art. FIG. 22G shows example regions including: a hair region 2284, a face region 2285, a coat region 2286, a shirt region 2287, a tie region 2288, and the background region 2260. Each region could be separated into separate planes and compressed using separate compression methods that are optimal for the contents of the plane. In the example shown, there could be six separate planes, one for each region. However the coat region 2286 and the tie region 2288 may be combined into a single plane because they have similar characteristics, in which case, there would be only five planes. Generally, in this example, the face region 2285 is the region of most importance to the viewer. In accordance with the present invention the face region 2285 could be compressed with a higher quality and transferred at a higher frame rate than the planes corresponding to the other regions.

As explained above, the user could manipulate the user input 2200 to select from various predetermined shapes and modify the shape, size, and location of the selected region. The user can also draw a region of any shape. More that one region could be selected. Some embodiments of the present invention will employ multiple selections to separate out three or more planes. All of these selections and how they are displayed on the display 2230 can be controlled by the user.

The present invention anticipates that if the area of the selection region is smaller than the entire frame, only the area of the selection region needs to be processed. For example, if the selection region is the rectangular region 2290 (shown if FIG. 22D), only the subset rectangle without the surrounding pixels can be compressed and encoded with the relative coordinates of the selection region. The surrounding pixels can be assumed by the decompressor to be mask values.

Automatic Switching between Grayscale Only and Doppler Enhanced Formats

As disclosed, for example in co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 09/321,922 regarding its FIG. 2, the video image capture device receives a stream of video images (1200) from a video source. The compressor 1210 is configured to compress the stream of video images 1200 thereby creating a compressed stream of video images (e.g. 1235). This is also shown in FIG. 12C. Video parameters such as the compression algorithm are included within the video settings. In one embodiment of this invention, the compressor, which is determining the scale of each pixel, can count the number of Doppler enhanced pixels in each frame, or image, of the video stream. As discussed above, whether a pixel is grayscale or Doppler enhanced is determined by comparing the red, green, and blue component values. If no Doppler pixel is found in an image, a standard grayscale format, such as ZLN format, can be used as the compression method of the compressor (i.e. Doppler enhanced encoding can be automatically switched off). When a Doppler enhanced pixel is found in a subsequent frame of the video stream by the same counting mechanism, the compressor can automatically be switched to use the Doppler enhanced format described above. The compressor will continue to use this compression method until the counting mechanism fails to detect a Doppler enhanced pixel, then the grayscale only compression method can be switched on again.

Advantages

Noise Filtering and Image Enhancement

The removal of the least significant bits of pixel values results in high quality decompressed images when the original image is generated by an electronic sensing device, such as an ultrasound machine, which is generating only a certain number of bits of grayscale resolution. By variably altering the number of most significant bits, various filters can be implemented to enhance the image quality. Such a noise filter can be beneficial when the image is generated by an imaging technology such as radar, ultrasound, x-ray, magnetic resonance, or similar technology. Variations can be made to enhance the perceived quality of the decompressed image. Therefore, altering the number of data bits selected and altering the width of the repeat count is anticipated by this invention and specific values in the examples should not be construed as limiting the scope of this invention.

Dynamic Variable Formats

While a video stream is being viewed, a viewer on the decoding end of the transmission can vary the settings for the compressor. Different tradeoffs between image spatial and temporal quality can be made. As the contents of the video signal change an appropriate format can be selected. Control signals can be sent back to the compressor via a communications link.

While a video stream containing Doppler enhancement is being viewed, a viewer on the decoding end of the transmission can vary the settings for the compressor. Different tradeoffs can be made. For example, more Doppler detail can be chosen with slower frame rate.

Automatic Switching

If no Doppler pixel is found in an image, a standard ZLN format can be used (i.e. Doppler enhanced encoding can be automatically switched off). When Doppler enhancement again appears in the video stream (as recognized by the detection of a Doppler pixel in a frame), the Doppler enhanced encoding can automatically be switched on again.

Execution Speed

The preferred embodiment of this invention uses a number of techniques to reduce the time required to compress and decompress the data.

The methods require only a single sequential pass through the data. Both the compression steps 100 and the decompression steps 150 access a pixel once and perform all calculations.

When selecting the filtered pixel value 299, the preferred embodiment selects the low order byte from the 32 bit pixel value 200 or the 24 bit pixel value 210 so that an additional shift operation or addressing operation is avoided.

The shift operation is a fast and efficient way to convert a byte or word to the filtered pixel value 299.

General Purpose

The lossless compression of the sampled data achieved by a preferred embodiment of the present invention results in high quality video streams that have general purpose application in a number of areas including, without limitation, medical, aviation, weather traffic, video conferencing, surveillance, manufacturing, rich media advertising, and other forms of video transmission, storage, and processing.

Lossless Nature/No Artifacts

Once the analog signal is sub-sampled and filtered to select a filtered pixel value that eliminates some of the real world defects, the methods of the present invention compress and decompress the data with no irreversible data loss. Unlike JPEG and MPEG, the decompressed image never suffers from artificially induced blocking or smearing or other artifacts that are result of the lossy compression algorithm itself. As a result even a small sub-sample of the image remains clear and true to the perceived quality of the original image.

Superior Features over RHN Format

When compared against the RHN format, the format and methods of the present invention provide a number of advantages, including, but not limited to, faster speed and smaller size of encoded data, better performance for both medical and typical video images, and a typically closer representation of the original video signal.

Superior Features over ZLN Format

When compared against the ZLN format, the format and methods of the Doppler improvement aspect of the present invention provide a number of advantages, including, but not limited to, a typically closer representation of the original video signal. As stated above, when compared to a method using all three or four color components, the Doppler improvement aspect of the present invention provides the advantages of efficient encoding of Doppler enhanced images and reduced size of an encoded data buffer that contains Doppler enhancement.

Optimal Encoding

The present invention also provides a method for separating a video image into distinguishable regions. Each region can be encoded, compressed, and transferred in a manner that is optimal for its distinguishing characteristics.

Reduced Size

The present invention may also reduce the size of an encoded video stream by optimally encoding separated planes. The reduced size saves in the usage and cost of storage devices and computing and networking resources.

Reduced Bandwidth

The present invention may also reduce the bandwidth required to transfer a compressed video stream. Both transfers within a computer system to a storage device, such as a hard disk, tape drive, and the like, and transfers between a transmitter and a receiver over a network, such as a LAN, the Internet, a television network, and the like, are improved. This improvement comes from: improved compression, separate frame rates for separate planes, and selective frame dropping.

This improved bandwidth allows for the regions of interest to be displayed at a higher quality of resolution and motion while reducing the requirements and cost of a high bandwidth connection or a connection with reduced traffic. For example, the present invention allows a video steam that previously had to be sent over a 1.54 Mb T1 line to be sent over a much less costly and much more prevalent DSL, cable modem, or 56 Kb modem connection.

Efficient Doppler Handling

The present invention also provides efficient methods for handling Doppler enhanced images. This allows for lower cost storage of weather, air traffic, and medical images. It also allows for enhanced quality of images.

Automatic Detection of Eye Movement

The present invention also provides for automatic detection of the eye movement of a user. This allows for a live television broadcast or webcast to be transmitted using the methods of the present invention.

Automatic Detection of Regions of Interest

The present invention allows for automatic detection of regions of interested based on characteristics of the images, such as color depth, areas of change, external source information, or other distinguishing characteristics.

Automatic Marker Detection

The present invention also provides for detection of markers that can be automatically detected to determine regions of greater interest or of improved compressibility. These allow for automatic application of the methods of the present invention. For example, in the case of a broadcast of a sporting event, markers can be used to determine areas of interest so that the important motion of the athletes is preserved when the rate of change normally would prevent a satellite from keeping up with the data. This results in a much more pleasing experience for viewers across the nation.

Conclusion, Ramification, and Scope

Accordingly, the reader will see that the compression and decompression steps of the present invention provide a means of digitally compressing a video signal in real time, a means of digitally compressing Doppler enhanced video signal in real time, communicating the encoded data stream over a transmission channel, and decoding each frame and displaying the decompressed video frames in real time. The present invention also provides a method of distinguishing between regions of an image, separating and masking the original image into multiple image planes, and compressing each separated image plane with a compression method that is optimal for each plane's characteristics. From a video stream, separate image streams can be stored or transmitted at different rates.

Furthermore, the present invention has additional advantages in that:

-   1. it provides a means of filtering real world defects from the     video image and enhancing the image quality; -   2. it allows for execution of both the compression and decompression     steps using software running on commonly available computers without     special compression or decompression hardware; -   3. it provides decompressed images that have high spatial quality     that are not distorted by artifacts of the compression algorithms     being used; -   4. it provides a variably scalable means of video compression and of     adding Doppler enhancement; and -   5. it provides a means for reducing the space required in a storage     medium.

While my above descriptions contain several specifics these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the invention, but rather as examples of some of the preferred embodiments thereof. Many other variations are possible. For example, bit ordering can be altered and the same relative operation, relative performance, and relative perceived image quality will result. Also, these processes can each be implemented as a hardware apparatus that will improve the performance significantly. In another example, frame differencing may be applied to the input stream to select a subset of a frame to be the original image, or a post processing step could be added to remove artifacts introduced by a particular decompression method.

Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated, but by the appended claims and their legal equivalents. 

I claim:
 1. A system for compressing of a plurality of video frames which make up a video stream, comprising: a) a video digitizer configured to digitize a frame from said video frames; b) a video memory which is able to receive a plurality of pixels from said video digitizer; c) at least one encoding means for generating encoded data, d) a memory which is able to store said encoded data; e) an input/output device, wherein said at least one encoding means comprises a compression means for counting repeated instances of a pixel value comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of pixels and outputting a series of encoded data comprising a combined run-length field and a data field, i) wherein the data field of each encoded data element comprises a number in the range from zero to the maximum value of said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, and ii) wherein the run-length field of each encoded data element comprises the repeat count of the value in said data field.
 2. The system of claim 1 wherein said encoding means variably selects one of a set of 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 12, 15, 16, and 24, as the number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel, wherein the number of pixel bits sub-sampled is less than the number of bits of the pixel being sub-sampled.
 3. The system of claim 2 wherein said pixel value is extracted from the most significant bits of each color component.
 4. The system of claim 1 wherein said input/output device is a storage medium.
 5. The system of claim 1 wherein said input/output device is a communications transmission channel.
 6. The system of claim 1 further comprising: a) a second encoding means, and b) a means for separating each frame into a plurality of planes, wherein at least one plane contains a first set of pixels having a distinguishing characteristic forming a region and mask pixels having a uniform pixel value, and at least another plane contains a second set of pixels from another region, and wherein the first compression means is used to compress one of said planes, wherein a second encoding means comprises a second compression means for compressing another of said planes.
 7. The system of claim 6 wherein one or more of said plurality of video frames is a Doppler enhanced frame which contains both grayscale pixel values and Doppler enhanced pixels values, the system further comprising a memory device containing a plurality of lookup tables, wherein the means for separating each frame into a plurality of planes separates grayscale pixel values into a grayscale plane and Doppler enhanced pixels values into a Doppler enhanced plane, wherein the first compression means is used to compress the grayscale plane, wherein the second compression means is used to compress the Doppler enhanced plane by: i) determining a scale for each of said pixels, ii) selecting a code from the plurality of lookup tables based on said scale and on a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel, iii) counting repeated instances of said code, iv) encoding said scale and said code, v) and outputting a series of encoded data comprising a combined second run-length field and a second data field, (1) wherein the second data field of each encoded data element comprises the scale and the code, and (2) wherein the second run-length data field of each encoded data element comprises the repeat count of the second data field.
 8. The system of claim 6 wherein said distinguishing characteristic is the effective color depth of each pixel of a current frame.
 9. The system of claim 6 wherein said distinguishing characteristic is based on user selection of a region.
 10. The system of claim 9 wherein said user selection is based on user input through an input device.
 11. The system of claim 10 wherein said user input is detection of user eye movement.
 12. The system of claim 6 wherein said distinguishing characteristic is the region of most change between adjacent frames in said video stream.
 13. The system of claim 6 wherein said distinguishing characteristic is based on detection of a marker.
 14. A system for compressing a video stream, said system comprising: a) an image source providing said video stream, said video stream comprising a plurality of video frames, b) a means for separating each frame into a plurality of planes, wherein at least one plane contains a first set of pixels having a distinguishing characteristic forming a region and mask pixels having a uniform pixel value, and at least another plane contains a second set of pixels from another region, and c) a means for compressing each of said plurality of planes into one of a plurality of encoded images, wherein said compressing means comprises a plurality of distinct compression methods, wherein said at least one plane containing the first set of pixels is compressed using one compression method, and wherein said at least another plane containing the second set of pixels is compressed using another compression method, wherein at least one of said regions is nonrectangular, wherein at least one plane contains all of the pixels from said at least one nonrectangular region, and wherein at least one other plane contains none of the pixels from said at least one nonrectangular region, and wherein one of the plurality of distinct compression methods comprises a first compression method comprising the steps of: i) obtaining a plurality of digital pixels representing each frame of the plurality of video frames, each of said pixels having an original number of bits; ii) counting repeated instances of a pixel value comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of digital pixels; iii) forming a series of encoded data comprising a combined data field and a run-length field, (1) wherein the data field of each encoded data element comprises a number in the range from zero to the maximum value of said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, wherein the maximum value is two to the power of N minus one, namely 2^(N)−1, where N is said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, and (2) wherein the run-length field of each encoded data element comprises the repeat count of the value in said data field; and iv) storing said encoded data in a temporary memory, wherein another of the plurality of distinct compression methods comprises a second compression method which is used to compress at least some of the frames, whereby the overall compressed size for said video stream, namely the combined size of the encoded images, is less than the compressed size when each frame of the video stream is compressed with a single high quality compression method.
 15. The system of claim 14 wherein said pixel value, comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of digital pixels, is extracted from the most significant bits of each color component.
 16. A method of reducing the size of a video stream, said method comprising the steps of: a) providing said video stream, said video stream comprising a plurality of video frames, b) separating each frame into a plurality of planes, wherein at least one plane contains a first set of pixels having a distinguishing characteristic forming a region and mask pixels having a uniform pixel value, and at least another plane contains a second set of pixels from another region, and c) compressing each of said plurality of planes into one of a plurality of encoded images, using a plurality of distinct methods, wherein said at least one plane containing the first set of pixels is compressed using one compression method, and wherein said at least another plane containing the second set of pixels is compressed using another compression method, wherein at least one of said regions is nonrectangular, wherein at least one plane contains all of the pixels from said at least one nonrectangular region, and wherein at least one other plane contains none of the pixels from said at least one nonrectangular region, and wherein one of the plurality of distinct compression methods comprises a first compression method comprising the sub-steps of: i) scanning a plurality of digital pixels representing each frame of the plurality of video frames, each of said pixels having an original number of bits; ii) counting repeated instances of a pixel value comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of digital pixels; iii) forming a series of encoded data comprising a combined data field and a run-length field, (1) wherein the data field of each encoded data element comprises a number in the range from zero to the maximum value of said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, wherein the maximum value is two to the power of N minus one, namely 2^(N)−1, where N is said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, and (2) wherein the run-length field of each encoded data element comprises the repeat count of the value in said data field; and iv) storing said encoded data in a temporary memory.
 17. The method of claim 16 wherein said pixel value, comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of digital pixels, is extracted from the most significant bits of each color component.
 18. A method, comprising: separating a frame of a video stream into a plurality of planes, wherein at least one plane contains a first set of pixels having a distinguishing characteristic forming a region and mask pixels having a uniform pixel value, and at least another plane contains a second set of pixels from another region, and compressing each of said plurality of planes into one of a plurality of encoded images, using a plurality of distinct methods, wherein said at least one plane containing the first set of pixels is compressed using one compression method, and wherein said at least another plane containing the second set of pixels is compressed using another compression method; wherein one of the plurality of distinct compression methods comprises a first compression method that includes: scanning a plurality of digital pixels of the frame, each of said pixels having an original number of bits; counting repeated instances of a pixel value comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of digital pixels; and forming a series of encoded data comprising a combined data field and a run-length field; wherein the data field of each encoded data element comprises a number in the range from zero to the maximum value of said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, wherein the maximum value is two to the power of N minus one, namely 2^(N)−1, where N is said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, and wherein the run-length field of each encoded data element comprises the repeat count of the value in said data field.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein at least one of said regions is nonrectangular, wherein at least one plane contains all of the pixels from said at least one nonrectangular region, and wherein at least one other plane contains none of the pixels from said at least one nonrectangular region.
 20. An apparatus, comprising: means for separating a frame of a video stream into a plurality of planes, wherein at least one plane contains a first set of pixels having a distinguishing characteristic forming a region and mask pixels having a uniform pixel value, and at least another plane contains a second set of pixels from another region, and means for compressing each of said plurality of planes into one of a plurality of encoded images, using a plurality of distinct methods, including first compression means for compressing said at least one plane containing the first set of pixels, and second compression means, distinct and separate from said first compression means, for compressing said at least another plane containing the second set of pixels; wherein at least one of said first and second compression means comprises: means for scanning a plurality of digital pixels of the frame, each of said pixels having an original number of bits; means for counting repeated instances of a pixel value comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of digital pixels; and means for forming a series of encoded data comprising a combined data field and a run-length field; wherein the data field of each encoded data element comprises a number in the range from zero to the maximum value of said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, wherein the maximum value is two to the power of N minus one, namely 2^(N)−1, where N is said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, and wherein the run-length field of each encoded data element comprises the repeat count of the value in said data field.
 21. At least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a plurality of executable instructions configured to enable an apparatus, in response to execution of the instructions by the apparatus, to: separate a frame of a video stream into a plurality of planes, wherein at least one plane contains a first set of pixels having a distinguishing characteristic forming a region and mask pixels having a uniform pixel value, and at least another plane contains a second set of pixels from another region, and compress each of said plurality of planes into one of a plurality of encoded images, using a plurality of distinct methods, wherein said at least one plane containing the first set of pixels is compressed using a first compression method, and said at least another plane containing the second set of pixels is compressed using a second compression method, distinct and separate from the first compression method; wherein either the first compression method or the second compression method includes: scanning a plurality of digital pixels of the frame, each of said pixels having an original number of bits; counting repeated instances of a pixel value comprising a number of pixel bits sub-sampled from each pixel when scanning said plurality of digital pixels; and forming a series of encoded data comprising a combined data field and a run-length field; wherein the data field of each encoded data element comprises a number in the range from zero to the maximum value of said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, wherein the maximum value is two to the power of N minus one, namely 2^(N)−1, where N is said number of sub-sampled pixel bits, and wherein the run-length field of each encoded data element comprises the repeat count of the value in said data field. 